


don't make me fall in love again

by ThisJoyAndI



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 16:25:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5504660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisJoyAndI/pseuds/ThisJoyAndI
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(if he won't be here next year)<br/>Willas, Sansa, and a wonderful white Christmas at Winterfell. 'Sansa is so very happy here, surrounded by those who know her best and love her just as deeply as he does, so, for her sake, he will just have to adapt to the cold.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't make me fall in love again

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SansaWillasWeek's Festive Fiesta.

Christmastime at Highgarden is always far too hot for Willas to even contemplate anything other than a day filled with cold meats, exposed flesh (on Margaery and Loras’ behalf, not his – he is far too vain to expose his scar, even around close family, even though it’s been years since the incident) and a desperate attempt to seek shade from the hot sun, an attempt which usually culminates in the family driving an hour to the closest beach for a quick dip.

A hot Christmas is something which he has become accustomed to, seeing as it has been his only experience for his twenty-five years of life, and that’s why, he thinks, spending Christmas with Sansa’s family has immediately equalled Willas shivering his way through the (he swears) absolutely _freezing_ temperatures Winterfell has to offer. He doesn’t hate the cold, in fact, he longs for autumn’s arrival at Highgaarden, for the nights to become colder and for the sun less severe… but this isn’t cold. Winterfell is utterly icy, almost arctic, and he cannot comprehend how Highgarden and Winterfell can exist upon the same continent, leagues apart though they may be.

But Sansa is so very happy here, surrounded by those who know her best and love her just as deeply as he does, so, for her sake, he will just have to adapt to the cold. It’s only for a week or so at most anyway, and then he’ll be back to complaining about the sweltering sun of Highgarden. And Sansa does look incredibly adorable all rugged up in her winter clothes, a homemade knitted beanie on her head and red gloves on her hands. She has spent most of her life in cold conditions like this, and despite living away from home for two years, she is still incredibly apt at showing Willas the ropes, offering him warm drinks of a night and ensuring his borrowed dressing grown is within easy reach of a morning, Willas’ leg even stiffer with the cold than it is usually at home.

Visiting Winterfell has finally given him the chance to meet Sansa’s family, the rest of the Starks as friendly and welcoming as their daughter – even Rickon, once Willas had offered him the seemingly appropriate amount of candy, Sansa’s youngest brother unable to sleep that night but thankfully now amiable to Willas’ presence in his home.

He and Sansa have been dating for almost a year and a half, Sansa having being introduced to him via Margaery, having been on exchange from Winterfell, and yet he has only ever met his girlfriend’s family via Skype and Facetime, unable to take time off work whenever Sansa found the chance to fly home for a weekend. Sansa’s family is scattered somewhat, one of the many downfalls to growing up, Robb and Jon having left home for job opportunities and Arya going east for her education. However, they still all manage to get together for Christmas, and he wasn’t about to let Sansa miss such an occasion, cold be damned. He’s had plenty of Christmases at Highgarden, and he isn’t about to miss the sunshine…perhaps only Grandmother’s special sangria.

But Winterfell has warm eggnog, a drink Willas has only dreamed about consuming at Christmastime, and he finds it more than able to fill the sangria shaped hole in his heart.  A glass of eggnog is seemingly at hand wherever he and Sansa go, even when they’re making snowmen or attempting to defeat Arya and Rickon in a snowball fight, Bran looking on in amusement but cursing when one of Arya’s snowball goes rogue and hits him squarely in the face – an action Willas thinks is most probably deliberate, judging from Arya’s grin.

Winterfell is like a winter wonderland come to life, everything and anything he’s ever seen from any Christmas movie ever made, and Willas adores it. Whenever he posts a new photo on Facebook, his siblings are quick to proclaim their jealously, Garlan responding to a photo of Sansa’s perfectly symmetrical snow angel with his own photo of a melted icecream, his brother claiming that he’d only looked away for a second before the sun had claimed his dessert as its latest conquest. Melodramatic though they might be, he does miss his siblings, for he’s spent the last twenty-five Christmases surrounded by them. But they’re more than able to celebrate Christmas without him, and anyways, Sansa and he will be back in Highgarden for New Years, Sansa simply unable to even think about missing Oberyn’s annual boat party.

The one thing they haven’t done though, surprisingly, is go ice-skating. Winterfell is riddled with frozen over lakes ready for them to skate upon, and if one doesn’t feel like ‘living dangerously’, as Arya puts it, an indoor rink was built almost two decades ago. Sansa had been a pro at the sport when she was younger, Winterfell littered with trophies and ribbons from her supposed ‘glory days’. She’d hung up her skates, for lack of a better cliché, when she’d decided to accept her university offer, choosing to further her education over a career in ice-skating. Willas will never judge her for such a choice, because if she hadn’t chosen her education, they probably never would have met, and he wouldn't be here right now, able to share these moments with her, watching Rickon switch Arya’s eggnog for pure custard, the pair silently shaking with laughter as Arya fumes.

Still, despite her few years away from the sport, he knows Sansa is still a pro at ice-skating. He however, is anything but. Highgarden had never allowed for such an activity, but now that they are here in Winterfell, Sansa is determined to teach him, and what his girlfriend wants, Willas has learnt, she usually gets.

She wakes him bright and early the morning of the twenty-third, Sansa resolute to squeeze in one last winter wonderland adventure before they’re too consumed with helping Catelyn with preparations for Christmas Day to even think about breathing, let alone skating. Sansa’s skates are still in her old bedroom, stashed alongside rolled up posters of old boybands that Willas will never admit to liking – having Margaery as a sister had ensured he’d had to either come to like those boybands, or go certifiably insane.

They eventually, after being fed more buttery toast and tea than Willas thought he could ever possibly consume, make their way outside, trudging through yet another layer of freshly fallen snow. Sansa’s hair is radiant in the pale sunlight, and as she takes his hand, leading him down the path to one of the many now frozen over lakes that surround Winterfell, she smiles at him over her shoulder, one of those smiles that remind Willas just how lucky he is to have found her.

One of his main concerns, when he’d remembered that one of the main features of any winter wonderland was ice-skating, was just how he was going to go, skating with a bad leg. Could he possibly try to skate with his cane, or would that endeavour be pointless, and rather stupid? Could his leg manage to hold him up sans cane, although it had been protesting the recent few days of vigorous activity?

All of his concerns however, quieten when Sansa takes him by the hand at the lake, helping him to his feet. He’s wearing a pair of borrowed skates, Robb’s feet similar in size to his and Sansa’s brother more than happy to lend them, seeing as he had no use for them nowadays. The feeling of wearing them is peculiar, especially without his ever present cane in his hand, but Sansa has seemingly had the same concern as he, for she loops his arm within hers and directs him to lean on her as he unsteadily takes to the ice. He does so gratefully, hoping that he isn’t squashing her, but he knows she’d have qualms in speaking up if he was.

They manage a few rounds around the small lake, Willas thankful that no one else is present to see his stumbles and near-falls, when Sansa murmurs, looking up at him, “Having fun?”

Willas nearly rolls his eyes at her, but he refuses to, for all of his concentration is solely focused on not falling over. “The most.”

Sansa shakes her head lightly, hair swishing as she laughs softly. They skate (but most likely, walk) around the ice once more, Willas slightly less unsteady on his feet _, thankfully_.  Miracles do happen.

“Thank you for coming home with me,” she says.  

Willas arches a brow. “Of course. How could I pass up an opportunity to meet the infamous Rickon Stark?”

He suspects she would have elbowed him sharply in the ribs for such a comment, if doing so wouldn’t end in him toppling over. She’ll probably make it up for it later, if he knows her as well as he thinks he does.

“I mean it. You’re the first boyfriend I’ve ever brought home, really. So thank you. Not only for giving up your beloved Highgarden Christmas, but for making this trip home such a great experience. My family adore you, you know,” she confesses.

Well that’s definitely his vanity sated for the day. “Why shouldn’t they?” he teases. “I’m great. Even Loras has been known to say so.”

“After one too many glasses of cider.”

“Irrelevant. Totally irrelevant.”  

Sansa merely narrows her eyes at him, depositing him safely back on the bench at the side of the lake. Willas sits down with a satisfied groan, a hand smoothing out the ache in his thigh.

“Okay?” Sansa questions, standing above him. He nods. “Will you be alright to sit here for a moment? Now that we’re here, I want to take a few turns around and see if I can remember anything from all those years of expensive training Mam and Da paid for. I’ll only be a second.”  

He nods, and Sansa grins in response, his girlfriend taking off down the ice without a second thought. Willas watches in amazing as she twirls and spins, leaping up into the air without reservation. Her delight at ice-skating, he thinks, is similar to the euphoria he felt when horse racing, nothing quite comparing to the feeling of the wind in his face and the horse under his thighs. Although the fall had ruined any possibility of Willas ever racing again, it had destroyed the love he held for it, with Willas now having to contend himself with simply watching rather than participating.

But seated on the bench he finds, he is more than happy to sit and watch Sansa. Catelyn had slyly snuck in a home movie of Sansa performing after dinner a few nights ago, Sansa protesting but swiftly held down by Robb, but a grainy recording from years ago cannot measure up to seeing the real thing.

She’s utterly marvellous, a vision amongst the snow, and when she blushes after Willas tells her so, he takes it upon himself to kiss the flush away from her cheeks, Sansa scrunching her nose up at him.

“Happy Christmas,” he whispers, Sansa burying her face into the hollow of his neck, her nose bitterly cold but welcome all the same.

Perhaps more Christmas visits to Winterfell shall soon be order, Willas thinks, if they all prove to be as wonderful as this one has been.

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas everyone! Have a great day, whatever it is you may be doing!!!!
> 
> I'm probably going to be sweltering in the Australian heat (Willas, I feel you) and eating waaaaaay too much cold meat but whatevs, it's only one day a year - aside from Boxing Day, which is pretty much just Christmas Day 2.0 with the other side of the family haha. 
> 
> I'll see you in 2016 with more Sansa/Willas fics!


End file.
